We all know that the internet has changed the way we receive information in the past 15 years. These changes are mostly for the better- we now have greater access to information that used to be restricted either because of geographical location or cost of reproduction. Who hasn’t had to do research for an important paper at some point in college only to find that all the books you need have already been checked out from the library?

We now have greater access to news reports from non-commercial radio and television stations from all over the world, we can try out recipes published online from famous chefs, listen to obscure new music or buy the master work of an up-and-coming new artist. In short- more voices are being heard. This is generally considered to be a good thing, and is certainly a more democratic approach to the dissemination of images, reviews, instructions, advice, videos, support groups and almost anything else you can think of.

However, as every designer knows- the internet may make it easier to get the message through, but not always exactly as you imagined. This, I believe, is the main difference between print design and web design- the degree to which the designer controls the final outcome.

When designing a product package, a business card, a wedding invite or any other printed material, the designer has many choices to make AFTER all the design has been done. When it comes to paper, choices abound. Paper weight, texture, and color must be decided. Metallic, recycled, handmade? Coated or uncoated? Gloss laminated or matte? Rounded corners? Embossed?

The best part about printed material is that you don’t have to know any technical terms in order to get exactly what you want. Even the least experienced person can come into ColourTime (or any other print shop) and touch and feel and decide what is best for his or her product. We then print out a sample on the paper of your choice, finish it, cut it and tailor it to all your specifications. When it is absolutely perfect, we make another five or ten thousand copies and you KNOW that each and every recipient will be seeing the exact same colors, feeling the same paper texture, reading the same font at the same size.

As any web designer knows, this is NOT the case when creating a website or html newsletter. After all the design has been completed, a tester must experiment with different browsers, different versions of different browsers, different operating systems and different screen resolutions.

If you want to use a font other than the most basic and boring sets, you must use images. But images can’t be understood by search engines like Google or Bing, making it harder for your site to be located by potential clients.

If you want to use fancy effects like animation you’ve got to bet on the fact that the viewer will have the latest version of Flash installed. If you want to provide printable pages you’d better hope that the viewer will have the latest version of Adobe Reader installed. And don’t even get me started with the myriad problems encountered when sending an html email blast…

In the end, you don’t want your important message derailed by a screen that warns: Error! or a big blank space where an image is supposed to be. Simply put, when it comes to the fidelity of your brand, printed products can more accurately represent and deliver your message. That’s the kind of positive impact all businesses need!

Have you every been working on a project- a poster, a flyer, an album cover- and felt like you just couldn’t find the right font? The average person will get about 50 different fonts with the purchase of a computer and operating system- which is more than enough. Most people will recognize these well known typographic choices:

But for graphic designers, these simply won’t cut it. Which is why we have gigantic collections of fonts that could be used for every imaginable project. When we are trying to convey of sense of social responsibility mixed with a youthful enthusiasm- which font works best? When we are trying to make a logo that “looks sort of like the competition, but better” which font do we use? Ligatures? Small caps? There are millions of choices out there from small typographic foundries who sell sets for less than $50 to Large Foundries whose offerings can reach up to $2,500 euros (Like this one.)

There are also many websites offering free fonts for download, though these fonts present their own problems. First of all, you never actually know if a font is free because the creator of the font intended for it to be free, or if it was somehow circulated without his or her knowledge and using it for commercial purposes could later get you into trouble. Some sites, like Abstract fonts, have recently incorporated a tagging system for the fonts they offer, differentiating between, personal use, commercial use and distribution.

Secondly, free fonts are usually incomplete, which you don’t find out until you are trying to type a word with an accent, or use numbers or punctuation marks. That’s always a disappointing moment.

But we’ve seen a new trend emerge in the past couple of years- physical objects as type. I first noticed it a couple of years ago at a graphic design conference I attended in Mar de Plata, Argentina called TMGD. Outside the venue in a grassy field they had placed large letters lit up- TMDG.



It was like a sculpture and people were immediately drawn to them. I later saw a photo of these letters used on postcards advertising events for that weekend.

I have since seen many examples of the “font as object.”

A postcard for an art show, several campaigns (Corrado Mattresses, Imagining Mozambique) from this Italian design group, and on many of the “Do not disturb” segments on Fox television.

So next time you can’t find the perfect font, think about how you might create it yourself- from clay, wood, cloth, legos, branches, metal or whatever else you’d like. Then grab your camera and start shooting. Now you can avoid having to add any 3D effects in Photoshop and the final image will be much more original. Viva “font as object!”